THE GOLDEN AGE OF QUACKERY

Ever hear of Peruna or Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound or Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root or Duffy's Pure Malt""? Do you know about the claims to make weak men strong and ailing women well? Did you ever see the Gibson Girl reclining, her ankle linked to that vital oxygen producer, Oxydonor? Probably not-you would have to date back to the first decade of our century and ""the golden age of quackery"". This is the story- and the story too of an energetic young reporter, Samuel Hopkins Adams, who went on the warpath to arouse the public, and almost single-handed put a host of the quacks out of business, and some of them behind bars, and got the Pure Food and Drug Act implemented to continue the battle against patent medicines.... It is a disturbing expose,this, for one has only to turn on the TV or the radio, or open to the testimonial advertising in the slick magazines to see the twist this fooling the public about cure alls has taken today. The public- especially the American public it would seem- likes to be fooled.